It seemed to be a regular day at Reseda Charter High School. For Khimberly Zavaleta Chuquipa, that meant trouble.
The 12-year-old was on campus on Feb. 17 when she saw her older sister, Sharon, being bullied by a group of students, her family says. It wasn’t the first time. She and her sister had been targets of such torment before.
Khimberly moved to intervene. In the ensuing melee, she was hit in the head with a metal water bottle — causing injuries so severe that she was hospitalized, and later died.
Her death left her family devastated and demanding answers.
“She dreamed of becoming a doctor, and she would always tell me that she would take care of me,” said her mother, Elma Chuquipa Sanchez, as she wiped away tears.
The family on Wednesday filed a wrongful-death claim against the Los Angeles Unified School District, alleging school officials failed to investigate reports of bullying, adequately supervise student interactions or implement effective safety measures.
An LAUSD spokesperson said the district does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.
“When violence escalates, that’s a breakdown of student safety, and that’s exactly what happened here with the LAUSD,” said Robert Glassman. The attorney, a partner with one of the three law firms representing the family, said during a news conference Wednesday morning that the “tragedy really highlights and underscores the very real and devastating consequences of unchecked bullying.”
In their claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, Khimberly’s family alleges the Feb. 17 incident was not the first time their girls had been “bullied and harassed on campus.” Their mother, the claim alleged, “had repeatedly reported bullying episodes to an LAUSD administrator. But LAUSD did nothing.”
Glassman, of Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP, said the same group of students had bullied other kids at the school and attacked another female student in the weeks leading up to Feb. 17.
He said the attack on that girl was captured on video and posted on social media with the caption, “Happy Tuesday.”
A video that captured the incident with Khimberly and her sister has also circulated on social media.
Glassman and family said Khimberly was taken to Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys after the Feb. 17 incident. She was evaluated and then sent home.
Three days later, however, she underwent emergency brain surgery at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital. She was placed in a medically induced coma and died on Feb. 25.
Glassman said the family’s legal team is looking into whether Khimberly was properly examined during her initial hospitalization. But he says the tragedy nonetheless spotlights the bullying problems at LAUSD, the second-largest school system in the country.
“Reports of bullying at this school district, quite frankly, are off the charts,” Glassman said. “According to a recent study, 1 out of 3 middle school students like Khimberly have experienced bullying at an LAUSD school.”
LAUSD officials declined to comment on or confirm that ratio. But in 2017, an internal audit found that 1 in 5 high school students and 1 in 4 elementary school students said they had been bullied in the last school year.
“That is inexcusable,” Glassman said. “This is something the school district needs to start taking seriously.”
In December, UCLA and UC Riverside researchers surveyed 606 public high schools principals to determine how the Trump administration’s mass deportations were affecting students.
About 36% of the principals, who were surveyed from May to August, said students from immigrant families had been bullied, and 64% said their attendance had dropped.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Glassman played a video showing the moment when Khimberly and her 15-year-old sister were allegedly attacked by bullies. He did not elaborate further on the context but said it was taken before Khimberly was struck with a metal water bottle.
The 49-second video begins with a young girl in blue pants picking up a metal water bottle from the ground and throwing it at another girl. Shortly after, a tall boy with a skullcap grabs her in what appears to be a chokehold while a student in the background yells, “Fight, fight, fight.”
The girl manages to break free but is then attacked by the same girl whom she threw the water bottle at. Another, smaller girl in pinkish pants can be seen walking closely behind the girl in blue.
In an interview on Tier Talk — a podcast show on YouTube — the girls’ uncle Guy Gazit identified the girl in blue as Sharon and the girl in pinkish pants as Khimberly. Unlike Glassman, Gazit said the video was taken after Khimberly had already been hit with the water bottle, and that Sharon threw the bottle at the other student in response.
“As you see, she’s clinging on to her older sister and walks behind her because before that she came [to the] front and she was hit in the head,” Gazit said.
“She’s clinging because at this point she’s already hurt, right?” the interviewer asked.
“She’s already hurt; she’s already complaining she’s dizzy,” Gazit responds.
Gazit claims in the interview that school police officers were on campus when the fight took place and that the other students involved were not disciplined.
During Wednesday’s news conference, Khimberly’s parents stood together, crying as they remembered their daughter as an outgoing young girl who loved to sing, dance and was learning to cook.
Between them were two large photos of Khimberly. In one, she and her sister hugged their mother, who was kneeling over the Hollywood star of actor Christopher Reeve.
In the other, a 9-year-old Khimberly held drawings and pictures for a school project.
“I helped her with it,” her father said, smiling slightly. “She got a good grade on it.”
Khimberly’s death brings additional scrutiny to LAUSD at a time when the district is already entangled in other controversies.
Last week, a Carson High School staff member was put on leave for allegedly sparking a series of fights on campus.
Two weeks ago, Supt. Alberto Carvalho was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation after the FBI raided his home and district office.
This is also not the first time LAUSD has been blamed in the death of a student amid allegations of bullying.
In March 2024, 16-year-old Shaylee Mejia died after she suffered a brain hemorrhage. The family claimed it was tied to a bullying-related fight at school.
But a final autopsy report determined there was no link between the fight — during which Mejia appeared to slam her head into a wall — and her death. The report instead cited injuries she suffered after falling down some stairs days after the fight took place.
